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Buddhism: A “Philosophical” Introduction
Buddhism: An Introduction
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“The Buddha”
Buddha and 6th-Century Brahmanism
The Three Jewels
Four Noble Truths
Eightfold Path
Two (Main) Vehicles
The Bodhisattva
Zen
Tibetan Buddhism
Two Buddhist “Creeds”
Buddhism in America
“The Buddha”
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Siddhartha Gautama of the Sakyas
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ca. 563-483 BCE
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Wife: Yasodhara; Son: Rahula
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“The Four Passing Sights”
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Six years of asceticism and seeking
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The Bodhi Tree
• The Temptation (Mara)
• Kama--the God of Desire
• Hurricanes, torrential rain, etc.
• What right do you have?
• Enlightenment
• One more question (from Mara)
• How can anyone understand?
• Dies from food poisoning?
Buddhism’s Challenge to 6th-cent. Brahmanism
(as described by Huston Smith)
Authority
Hereditary and exploitative
(provenance of Brahmins)
Buddha preached a religion
devoid of authority
Ritual
Rituals became mechanical means
of achieving miraculous results
Buddha preached a religion
devoid of ritual
Speculation
Lost its experiential basis;
hairsplitting
Buddha preached a religion
that skirted speculation
Tradition
Dead weight; e.g., insistence on
continued use of Sanskrit
Buddha preached a religion
devoid of tradition
Grace
Read in ways that undercut
responsibility and/or led to fatalism
Buddha preached a religion
of tremendous self-effort
Mystery
Devolved into mystery-mongering,
mystification, obsessions with the
occult/fantastic
Buddha preached a religion
devoid of the supernatural
“The Three Jewels”*
• Buddha (The Awakened One)
• Dharma (The Teachings)
• Sangha (The Community)
*also “The Three Refuges”
The Four Noble Truths
• Life is Duhkha (Suffering,
dissatisfaction, wobbly wheel [for
grocery cart]): pain, change, being
• Tanha/trishna (craving, desire) binds us
to suffering
• There is a way out of this (“nirvana”)
• This way is the Eightfold Path
The Eightfold Path
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Right View
Right Thought
Right Speech
Right Action
samma = right,
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Right Livelihood
Right Effort
Right Mindfulness
Right Concentration
Annatta/Anatta/Anatman
Skandhas:
•form/material composition
•sensing/feeling
•perception(s)
•mental formations/thought processes
•consciousness/Consciousness
Two Main “Vehicles”
THERAVADA (HINAYANA)--ELDERS
MAHAYANA (“Reformers”)
Human beings are emancipated by self-effort,
without supernatural aid
Human aspirations are supported by divine
powers and the grace they bestow
Key virtue is wisdom
Key virtue is compassion
Attainment requires constant commitment,
and is primarily for monks and nuns
Religious practice is relevant to life in the
world, and therefore to lay people
Ideal: the Arhat who remains in nirvana after
death
Ideal: the bodhisattva
Buddha a saint, supreme teacher, and inspirer Buddha a savior
Minimizes metaphysics
Elaborates metaphysics
Minimizes ritual
Emphasizes ritual.
Practice centers on meditation.
Includes petitionary prayer.
The Bodhisattva
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In Theravada Buddhism, the bodhisattva is
seen as seeking enlightenment so that, once
awakened, he or she may efficiently aid other
beings with the expertise of supreme wisdom.
Gautama Buddha’s previous life experience as
a bodhisattva before Buddhahood are recorded
in the texts of the jataka.
Lay Buddhists of Theravada seek inspiration in
Gautama's skill as a good layman in these
texts, which account not only his historical life,
but many previous lives.
When Gautama Buddha referred to himself in
his pre-Buddha existence, he spoke in terms of
"when I was still a Bodhisattva".
The only currently active bodhisattva described
in the Pali Canon is the future Buddha
Maitreya. The Theravada tradition, i.e., the Pali
Canon, speaks of no other bodhisattvas than
these.
The Bodhisattva (cont.)
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In Mahayana Buddhism, a bodhisattva has the
compassionate determination to aid all beings on their
quest for the highest state of development, full
enlightenment of a Buddha.
Remaining in this world of uncontrolled rebirth (samsara)
this individual has taken the bodhisattva vows not to pass
into nirvana until all other beings have likewise achieved
enlightenment.
In brief, simply imagine the Bodhisattva as saying, "If I
know how to swim, and even one other being cannot, then
I will remain behind in this world to assist them until they
know how to save themselves from drowning".
According to many traditions within Mahayana Buddhism,
on his or her way to becoming a Buddha, the bodhisattva
proceeds through ten, or sometimes fourteen, stages or
bhumi.
Various traditions within Buddhism believe in certain
specific bodhisattvas. Some bodhisattvas appear across
traditions, but due to language barriers may be seen as
separate entities. For example, Tibetan Buddhists believe
in Chenrezig, who is Avalokitesvara in India, Kuan Yin
(other spellings: Guan Yin, Kwan Yin, Quan Yin) in China,
and Kannon in Japan.
Zen (Ch’an) Buddhism
• Bodhidharma (ca. 500
C.E.)
• Zen characteristics are
non-dualism,
completeness,
immediacy, authenticity,
• activeness,
everydayness,
selflessness,
dedication, spontaneity
• zazen, koans, satori
satori (example?)
“Ztt! I entered. I lost the boundary of my
physical body. I had my skin, of course, but I
felt I was standing in the center of the
cosmos. I saw people coming toward me, but
all were the same man. all were myself. I had
never known this world before. I had
believed that I was created, but now I must
change my opinion; I was never created; I
was the cosmos. No individual existed.” (Zen
Notes 1.5, p. 1)
zazen
koan
• “What is the sound of one hand (clapping)?
• “What’s true meditation? It’s to make it all-coughing, swallowing, gestures, motion,
stillness, words, action, good and evil,
success and shame, win and lose, right and
wrong--into on single koan.” --Hakuin (16861769)
Koan:
MUDDY ROAD: Tanzen and Ekido were once traveling
together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still
falling.Coming around the bend, they met a lovely girl in a
silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection.
"Come on girl", said Tanzen at once. Lifting her in his
arms, he carried her over the mud.Ekido did not speak
again until that night when they reached a lodging temple.
Then he no longer could restrain himself. "We monks don't
go near females," he told Tanzen, "especially not young
and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?”
"I left the girl there," said Tanzen. "Are you still carrying
her?"
Koan:
A monk told Joshu, "I have just entered the
monastery. Please teach me.”
Joshu asked, "Have you eaten your rice
porridge?The monk replied, "I have eaten.”
Joshu said, "Then you had better wash your
bowl.”
At that moment the monk was enlightened.
Koan:
One day Akbar drew a line with his royal hand on the
floor of the open court and told his wise men that if they
wanted to keep their jobs they must make the line
shorter without touching any part of it.
Wise man after wise man approached and stood
staring at the puzzle, but they were unable to solve the
problem.
Finally Birbal stepped forward and drew a longer line
next to the first one, without touching the first
line.Everyone in the court look at it and agreed. The
first line was definitely shorter.
Koan:
A university student asked Gasan, "have you ever read the Christian Bible?”
"No, read it to me," said Gasan.The student opened the Bible and read from St.
Matthew: "And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field,
how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you that
even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these... Take therefore
no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of
itself.”
Gasan said: "Whoever uttered those words I consider an enlightened man.
"The student continued reading: "Ask and it shall be given to you, see and ye
shall find, knock and it shall be opened for you. For everyone that asketh
receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh, it shall be
opened.”
Gasan remarked: "That is excellent. Whoever said that is not far from
Buddhahood."
“Asked what Zen training leads to,
a Western student who had been
practicing for seven years in Kyoto
answered, ‘No paranormal
experiences that I can detect. but
you wake up in the morning and
the world seems so beautiful you
can hardly stand it.” (Quoted in
Smith, World Religions, p. 93)
Tibetan (Vajrayana) Buddhism
• Distinctive practices that enable one to reach
nirvana in a single lifetime
• Tantric
• Mantras, Mudras (hand gestures), Mandalas
• Dalai Lama
A Sand Mandala
Mudras
“The Dalai Lama is not accurately likened to the pope, for it is not his
prerogative to define doctrine. Even more misleading is the designation
god-King, for though temporal and spiritual authority do converge in him,
neither of those powers define his essential function. The function is to
incarnate on earth the celestial principle of which compassion or mercy
is the defining feature. The Dalai Lama is the bodhisattva who in India
was known as Avalokiteshvara, in China as the Goddess of Mercy,
Kwan Yin, and in Japan as Kannon. As Chenrezig (his Tibetan name)
he has for the last several centuries incarnated himself for the
empowerment and regeneration of the Tibetan tradition. Through his
person--a single person who has thus far assumed fourteen successive
incarnations--there flows an uninterrupted current of spiritual influence,
characteristically compassionate in its flavor. . . The Dalai Lama is a
receiving station toward which the compassion-principle of Buddhism in
all its cosmic amplitude is continuously channeled, to radiate thence to
the Tibetan people most directly, but by extension to all sentient beings.”
(Smith, World Religions, pp. 143-44)
Buddhism in the West:
“Fundamental Buddhistic Beliefs”
Colonel H.S. Olcott, Founding President of the Theosophical Society, 1891
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Buddhists are taught to show the same tolerance, forbearance, and brotherly love to all men,
without distinction; and an unswerving kindness towards the members of the animal
kingdom.
The Universe was evolved, not created; and it functions according to law, not according to
the caprice of any God.
The truths upon which Buddhism is founded are natural. They have, we believe, been taught
in successive kalpas, or world periods, by certain illuminated beings called Buddhas, the
name Buddha meaning "enlightened.”
The fourth teacher in the present kalpa was Sakya Muni, or Gautama Buddha, who was born
in a royal family in India about 2,500 years ago. He is an historical personage and his name
was Siddhartha Gautama.
Sakya Muni taught that ignorance produces desire, unsatisfied desire is the cause of rebirth,
and rebirth the cause of sorrow. To get rid of sorrow, therefore, it is necessary to escape
rebirth; to escape rebirth, it is necessary to extinguish desire; and to extinguish desire, it is
necessary to destroy ignorance.
Ignorance fosters the belief that rebirth is a necessary thing. When ignorance is destroyed
the worthlessness of every such rebirth, considered as an end in itself, is perceived, as well
as the paramount need of adopting a course of life by which the necessity for such repeated
births can be abolished. Ignorance also begets the illusive and illogical idea that there is only
one existence for man, and the other illusion that this one life is followed by states of
unchangeable pleasure or torment.
“Fundamental Buddhistic Beliefs”
(cont.)
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The dispersion of all this ignorance can be attained by the persevering practice of an all-embracing altruism in
conduct, development of intelligence, wisdom in thought, and destruction of desire for the lower personal pleasures.
The desire to live being the cause of rebirth, when that is extinguished rebirths cease and the perfected individual
attains by meditation that highest state of peace called nirvana.
Sakya Muni taught that ignorance can be dispelled and sorrow removed by the knowledge of the four Nobel Truths,
viz: 1 . The miseries of existence; 2. The cause productive of misery which is the desire ever renewed of satisfying
oneself without being able ever to secure that end; 3.The destruction of that desire, or the estranging of oneself from
it; 4. The means of obtaining this destruction of desire. The means which he pointed out is called the Noble Eightfold
Path, viz: Right Belief; Right Thought; Right Speech; Right Action; Right Means of Livelihood; Right Exertion; Right
Remembrance;Right Meditation.
Right Meditation leads to spiritual enlightenment, or the development of that Buddha-like faculty which is latent in
“Fundamental Buddhistic Beliefs”
(cont.)
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The essence of Buddhism summed up by the Tathagata (Buddha) himself is: To cease from all sin, To get virtue, To
purify the heart
The universe is subject to a natural causation known as "karma". The merits and demerits of a being in past
existences determine his condition in the present one. Each man, therefore, has prepared the causes of the effects
which he now experiences.
The obstacles to the attainment of good karma may be removed by the observance of the following precepts, which
are embraced in the moral code of Buddhism, viz: (1) Kill not; (2) Steal not; (3) Indulge in no forbidden sexual
pleasure; (4) Lie not; (5) Take no intoxicating or stupefying drug or liquor. Five other precepts, which need not here be
enumerated, should be observed by those who would attain more quickly than the average layman the release from
misery and rebirth,
Buddhism discourages superstitious credulity Gautama Buddha taught it to be the duty of a parent to have his child
Buddhism in the West:
Twelve Principles of
Buddhism
(click here)
Buddhism in America
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An Architect and Zen
Nen in Maryland
Soka University
Tibetan New Year
Thich Nhat Hanh